


Rest in Peace

by osprey_archer



Category: Om Shanti Om (2007)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-31
Updated: 2011-07-31
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shanti means peace, but there is no peace for Shanti.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest in Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [russian_blue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/russian_blue/gifts).



Shanti means peace, but there is no peace for Shanti. No forgetting, and slipping into another life; nor quiet, nor oblivion. Her spirit seeps up the scorched walls of the movie set that is her tomb, where the ghost of the old fire burns. The heat keeps her half-awake, in the drowsing state where a minute and a week seem the same.

Shanti loves the monsoon. The torrents of rain soothe the fire, and then Shanti sleeps.

But the heat always returns, and Shanti half-wakes and burns again.

Eons pass, it seems, and filmmakers return, and Om - of course she knows him - but her happiness cannot give her peace.

Neither can her rage, but at least it burns away her wretched half-sleep.

His hair is gray, his moustache gone. But even if he came back as the slug that in his next life he will be, Shanti would know him.

Mukesh.

***

She met Mukesh at a studio party.

She met hundreds of men at these studio parties, and forgot most of them in minutes. They all said the same three things.

“You are so beautiful,” they said, as if she hadn’t heard it a thousand times before - and that was only counting the last week.

“I have connections,” they said, sucking on their cigarettes to show their sophistication, and accidentally blowing smoke in her face.

“I want you,” they said, nudging her in the hope that her pallu would slip off her breast.

But Mukesh said nothing. He sat in the corner, cigarette smoldering, and when her eyes caught on him, he glanced at her. His eyebrows rose in appreciation, and she stood still for his approach. He flicked ash off his cigarette, smiled faintly, and turned away.

“Who is he?” she asked her friend Deepika.

“Nobody,” Deepika said. “What a mustache!”

She drained her glass of champagne. Deepika was forty, a character actress, the champagne wouldn’t hurt her career at all. Shanti envied her.

“But what’s his name?” she asked.

“Mukesh something,” Deepika said. “Wouldn’t you rather meet...” and Deepika rattled off a list, because Deepika knew everyone, because she acted the part of Distraught Mother in about twenty pictures a year.

She introduced Shanti to all of them, but in memory they had faded to a blur. The world only cleared again when Shanti maneuvered her way to stand by Mukesh.

He didn’t look up for the longest time, though she knew he knew she was there. Shanti’s bracelets clinked, and she looked down and saw that she had twisted her hands together. She began to move away.

He raised his dark eyes then, and smiled his thin snake-like smile. She stood transfixed as he said, “Shanti Priya.” He took his cigarette from his mouth and blew out a stream of smoke, so neatly she didn’t cough a bit.

“I saw your last movie,” he said.

Shanti was disappointed. She’d heard that line too. “Which one?” she asked, testing.

“ _Victim of Love_ ,” he said.

Maybe he had seen it.

“It was terrible.”

He _had_ seen it. Poor man. “I’m sorry,” Shanti said, sincerely, but she couldn’t stop a smile.

He leaned forward, clasped hands hanging between his knees. Even then, even as a nobody, he wore a fine black suit, shining leather shoes. “But you made those three unbearable hours worthwhile - just playing the little sister of the heroine’s best friend.”

The rest of the party ceased to exist: it seemed that Mukesh and Shanti stood alone in a black plane, his eyes like spotlights on her. “You will be a great heroine,” he said.

His hand brushed hers. The spell lifted, the party returned, but she couldn’t look away.

He stood. Her gaze lifted, following his eyes, and when he smiled all the breath left her body. “I see my future in you.”

Three weeks later they married in secret. Two weeks after that they broke a coconut to bless their first film together: _Joy of Youth_ , Shanti Priya’s debut picture, the film that catapulted them to the top of Bollywood.

And two years after that, when Mukesh saw Shanti standing in the way of his future, he killed her.

***

Shanti couldn’t remember the explosion that blew her out of the building. She regained consciousness in the underbrush, twisted in her sari. She tried to kick it off, but her skin felt like it split under that slight movement and she gasped in pain. The air seered her throat.

Far off, she saw Mukesh’s burning set. The flames had died down to embers, which glowed like the dawn. She hoped Om hadn’t burned with the set. If he had gotten clear, she hoped he hadn’t run into the fire after her again. She hoped -

A beam broke and tumbled through the sets. She could barely hear it, ears dulled by the explosion.

Nor did she hear anyone crashing in the undergrowth, until the searcher stepped on her sari. The golden zari embroidery rasped against her skin, and she screamed. It came out a rattling cough.

“Om,” she gasped, though speaking hurt more than screaming.

Om couldn’t have afforded those fine leather shoes, those American jeans. He would never have thrown her over his shoulder like a bag of rice.

But even before she saw his feet, she knew he was dead. She felt it when she said his name. _I love Shanti more than my life_ , he’d said.

“Why,” grunted Mukesh, stumbling under her weight, “why can’t you just die?”

A tear leaked from her eye. The salt burned her raw skin.

She coughed ash on his shining leather jacket.

Mukesh had already dug her grave beneath the chandelier where they should have been wed. He tossed her into the hole. His black mustache strained against his teeth as he covered her with dirt.

***

His face is much the same, even without the mustache crawling over his lip. (How could she have loved a man with such a patently evil moustache?) The attentive eyes, seemingly so fascinated, but secretly recording every weakness. The total confidence in his thin smile, which draws money to him as rot draws flies.

She cannot kill him yet. He's standing next to Om, who now lives the life that his generous heart deserves. Not yet. But at least she's awake.

“She’s waiting for you, Mukesh!” the old woman cries, her gray hair wild around her face. “ _Shanti_!”


End file.
